Students from the music school that trained Yehudi Menuhin and Julian Lloyd Webber are performing a special concert in aid of the Mayor of Cheltenham’s charities.
Wells Virtuosi - the senior strings chamber orchestra from Wells Cathedral School – performs music by Holst, Elgar, Finzi, Suk and Dvorak at Pittville Pump Room.
The group from Wells Cathedral School - one of only four specialist music schools in the country – has 11 different nationalities represented among its current musicians, including New Zealand, Brazil, and America. Its 28 members, who’ll play violins, violas, basses and cellos, range from 14 to 17 in age.
A Spring Serenade will raise money for Mayor Duncan Smith’s chosen charities; Cotswold Riding For The Disabled and Maggie’s Centre in Cheltenham, which offers practical and emotional support to people with cancer.
“This is a rare opportunity to hear one of Europe’s leading chamber groups from a school which has been producing music since its founding year, AD909,” says Mark Stringer, director of music.
“A distinguished violist and professor at the well-known Frankfurt Hochschule Music Conservatoire recently said Wells Virtuosi had to be the finest school orchestra in the world. Indeed most students go on to have distinguished musical careers, many as soloists, chamber musicians and principal players in many of our most celebrated orchestras and ensembles.”
The concert will be led by conductor and artistic director Matthew Souter, who is head of strings at the school where he was once a pupil. Mr Souter has been a professor at The Royal Academy of Music for 18 years, has guest lead the viola sections in virtually all of Britain’s most celebrated orchestras, and is a member of the much-lauded Alberni String Quartet.
The concert is on Thursday March 3 at 7.30pm. Tickets, priced £10, are available online and from the box office at the Town Hall (0844 576 2210).
